The story of Superman is classic: Clark Kent/Kal-El (Henry Cavill) is a 33 year old man that is lost. Kal wanders the world, taking various jobs. He does all of this while secretly helping those in need. He usually uses another identity in these jobs, he eventually settles for the name Clark Kent. He feels alienated by powers beyond his imagination. Transported years ago to Earth from Krypton, a highly advanced, distant planet, Kal struggles with the ultimate question: 'Why am I here?' Shaped by the values of his adoptive parents Martha Kent (Lane) and Jonathan Kent (Costner), Kal discovers that having extraordinary abilities means making difficult decisions.

OFFICIAL TRAILER

AWARDS

Due to his success with the Batman franchise, Christopher Nolan was brought on to help develop the reboot of Superman along with screenwriter David S. Goyer, who assisted with the Dark Knight Trilogy, co-writing Batman Begins. This was merely as a creative consultant, it was never intended for Nolan to direct. When Zack Snyder was later brought on as director, Nolan chose to hand all creative control over to Snyder and focused on The Dark Knight Rises. According to Nolan's wife/producer Emma Thomas, "They [Nolan and Goyer] brought it to an appropriate screenplay and it's now Snyder's picture".

Following his involvement in Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, Hans Zimmer was chosen to write the film's music score. To completely distinguish this film from previous ones, the iconic "Superman Theme" by John Williams won't be heard. This will be the first Warner Bros. Superman film to not incorporate Williams' score from Superman, which was reused for the sequels starring Christopher Reeve, as well as in Superman Returns starring Brandon Routh.

Contrary to the DC Comics and past installments of Superman films, Man of Steel will feature a Superman suit without the red underwear to go along with it. According to Director Zack Snyder, the reason behind the decision to omit the red undies was because they weren't "consistent with the world we were creating."

EASTER EGGS

When Clark returns home to his mother a "Lexcorp" truck can be seen driving away behind him

During the Smallville fight with Faora, Superman is thrown through a "Lexcorp" oil truck.

During the fight in Metropolis a truck is thrown at Superman with the "Lexcorp" logo on it.

During the fight in space with General Zod, the Satellite belongs to Wayne Enterprises.

Lois Lane says "welcome to the planet," when Clark receives a job at the fictional newspaper, 'The Daily Planet,' simultaneously welcoming him to his new job as well as referencing Clark's alien origins.

The female Air Force captain who says she thinks Superman is "kinda hot" is named Carrie Farris, a referrence to Carol Farris, Hal Jordan's love interest from Green Lantern.

"When Zod's tearing the building apart with his heat vision, there's a Be Calm And Call Batman sign on the wall there, just really small," says Snyder, "you might even have to stop the movie to see it but it's definitely in there. That's a Double Negative Productions [Easter Egg]. D Neg is the visual effects company here in London that worked on all the Dark Knight movies, and they definitely did that. And [when i saw it], I was like, 'Thats awesome'"

Changes from the original story

Kryptonian babies are bred using a codex that contains ALL kryptonian DNA, which is stolen by Jor-El and imbedded within Kal-El's body to preserve the Kryptonian species. Each Kryptonian is bred to be a leader, a warrior, a scientist, a farmer, or some other type of contributor to society. General Zod and company were codex babies, as was every Kryptonian for the last few centuries. They were bred to be soldiers. Jor-El was bred to be a scientist. Kal-El was the first Kryptonian born of natural Birth in hundreds of years because his father believed that a child should be free to make a choice in what he wants to be in life.

Krypton is a planet with a very harsh environment. The gravity is much, much higher. The atmosphere is different. There are not many nutrients in the air, so kryptonian cells are designed to be much more resilient in nature. Therefore on Earth, due to the many nutrients in the atmosphere, and much lower gravity, Kal-El gains fantastic abilities.

Krypton is a much more Alien looking world with various environments, architecture, and creatures, including winged creatures similar to the Banshees in Avatar, seen when Jor-El uses one for transportation.

When on the Kryptonian ship, Superman has to acclimate to Kryptonian air and he "loses" his powers. Lois has to wear a respirator to breath in the ship.

Kryptonians have been teraforming the galaxy for thousands of years. One ship landed on Earth over 18,000 years ago. There was one pod open in the movie, but who it was is not revealed.

Superman's suit is the garments that are worn under the armor of Kryptonians. The "S" is the El's family seal, which is Kryptonian for "hope".

Lois always refers to Superman as "Clark" in the movie. She knows who he is from the beginning.

Pete Ross is in the movie, but he's white, not black like the one in Smallville. He's not Clarks best friend. As a matter of fact he was one of the kids that would insult clark as a kid.

Superman doesn't fly from the get go, he starts off with leaps and bounds, which goes back to the original comics where he didn't fly but instead jumped great distances.

Non was replaced by the eight foot kryptonian named Nam-Ek, and Faora-Ul replaces Ursa.

Jor-El is now an actual consciousness versus being a generic computer program as with the other movies.

It appears the fortress of solitude is not an ice castle or crystal palace, but is the 18,000 year old ship, which can simulate kryptonian atmosphere, thus taking away Superman's powers.

Jonathan Kent dies in a tornado. He does so by choice, believing that having Clark's secret kept was far more important than his own life.

Krypton blew up because the core became unstable, not because the Red Sun exploded.

Perry White is Black, and Jimmy Olson is Jenny Olson. Lois knows that Clark is Superman before he even works at the Daily Planet. This is a different Superman world altogether.

Lois Lane doesn't smoke.

MISC

Pete Ross recognizes Clark as Superman when he crashes through his store.

Lana Lang was also in the bus. Lana is Clark's girlfriend (storyline from TV's Smallville).

In the bar scene, a trucker picks a fight with Clark. This is an obvious homage to Superman 2.

In the Man of Steel Prequel comic, the council finds Dev-Em guilty of murder. This is the first murder on Krypton in over a thousand years according to the comic, which is set in the movie's Universe. Zod murders Jor-El making him the second Kryptonian to murder someone in over a thousand years. Kal-El murders Zod making him the third Kryptonian to murder someone in over a thousand years.

In the Man of Steel Prequel comic it was Kara's ship that crashes on Earth, and ther are cave paintings depicting the crash. But it doesn't state that it was 18,000 years ago.

In the 33 years that Zod was out in space, he and his crew didn't really age. They visited all the outposts throughout the galaxy slavaging ships, weapons, and even a world maker. Which is used to teraform other planets and make them habitable to Kryptonians.

Zod and company wanted to teraform Earth, thus killing all humans, and then extract the codex from Kal-El and repopulate the Kryptonian species.

Kal-El is transported to Earth not by traveling the stars, but via a wormhole that takes his ship near the rings of Saturn, and from there he travels to Earth.

Superman destroys the 18,000 year old ship containing the pods that grew the Kryptonians. The only way for the Kryptonian race to continue is for Superman to mate with another being.

Smallville's high school Football team is named The Smallville Spartans, which is in honour of Zack Snyder's 300